Christmas 2025: GOD WITH US
Christmas stands like a quiet, holy reminder that God has never been content to love us from a distance. When Matthew tells us that the Child’s name shall be Immanuel—“God with us”—he is not merely giving us a title to recite during December; he is unfolding the great width of God’s desire, the boundless reach of His compassion, the immeasurable span of His heart stretched wide across the ages (Matthew 1:23).
Christmas is the end of isolation; it is the death of distance. It is the moment heaven said, I will not watch from afar; I will walk beside you.
And oh, the width of that word—us. Not the deserving. Not the wise. Not the righteous. Us. The tired, the frightened, the grieving, the guilty, the forgotten, the overlooked, the spiritually empty—He has come for us.
The cradle in Bethlehem is the great announcement that God has tethered Himself to our story; that He has stepped into our world not as a visitor but as a Savior; that He has folded Himself into our weakness with the gentle strength of redeeming love.
The width of His nearness stretches into every room we think is too dark, every chapter we think is too ruined, every future we fear might collapse. His presence leaves nothing untouched.
It is easy at Christmas to think of what has gone from us—joy, time, people we loved, hopes that once burned brightly. But the gospel tells a different story: what we feared was gone is now gone with us, swallowed up by the presence of the One who has entered our world.
Our failures are not gone alone—they are gone with us into the arms of grace.
Our losses are not gone alone—they are gone with us into the comfort of the Shepherd who walks through every valley beside His sheep (Psalm 23:4).
Our sins are not gone alone—they are gone with us into a cross where mercy triumphs and new life begins.
So how do we make it at Christmas, when the world shines but the heart groans? We make it because God is with us, and that phrase holds more weight than galaxies.
We make it because His nearness is not seasonal and His love is not fragile.
We make it because the Child in the manger became the Man of Sorrows, and the Man of Sorrows became the risen Lord who said, “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20).
The God who came in swaddling cloths now walks in resurrection glory—and still, He is with us.
This is the width of Christmas: not that God watched, but that God came; not that God advised, but that God accompanied; not that God loved from heaven, but that God moved into our humanity and carried our burdens in His own flesh. His presence is our courage. His nearness is our peace. And His “with us” is the promise that whatever we must face—we never face it alone.
So rejoice—not because life is easy, but because God is with us; not because the path is smooth, but because the Shepherd walks it with His sheep; not because sorrow disappears, but because love accompanies us through it.
This is Christmas—holy, wondrous, and wide. The God who came then is the God who stays now, stretching His arms across the breadth of our world, whispering again and again, “My child, I am with you.”
BDD
